Volume 13 (2017): Issue 2 (June 2017)

Romania represents one of Europe’s countries with high landslides occurrence frequency. Landslide hazard maps are designed by considering the interaction of several factors which, by their joint action may affect the equilibrium state of the natural slopes. The aim of this paper is landslides hazard assessment using the methodology provided by the Romanian national legislation and a very largely used statistical method. The final results of these two analyses are quantitative or semi-quantitative landslides hazard maps, created in geographic information system environment. The data base used for this purpose includes: geological and hydrogeological data, digital terrain model, hydrological data, land use, seismic action, anthropic action and an inventory of active landslides. The GIS landslides hazard models were built for the geographical area of the Iasi city, located in the north-east side of Romania.

The analysis presented in this paper is dealing with the correct and energy efficient measures of cooling buildings through nocturnal natural ventilation. Using this solution is proved in this article to be efficient and can reduce substantially the cooling demand. In order to establish the factors influencing the process of passively cooling a building (the ventilation volume, exterior temperature, thermal capacity of the building, possible duration of the ventilation), we have chosen different buildings, which we have placed them in different temperature zones of Romania. The study is based on multiple simulations realized with a time step of one hour, with the following variations: the climatic parameters, the thermal characteristics of the building, the air flow during night time, the proposed interior temperature. Since the study consisted of numerous simulations, in order to treat the results we have used statistical methods that cover the practical and possible situations, and proved the efficiency of nocturnal ventilation.

The overall stability of the Rovinari dry ash slurry impoundment is analyzed using a coupled seepage-stability analysis with the Finite Element Method in a bidimensional model. To better understand the behavior of such a complex structure, based on the material properties presented in Table 2, the hypotheses presented in Table 4 and described as such, a number of 9 general hypotheses were analyzed, at 178.00 m a.s.l. deposit elevation and final designed height of approximately 35.30 m which corresponds to 191.3 m a.s.l.. The results are presented in tabular form, only 8 diagrams are selected which show the Factor of Safety for hypothesis 0 and 3 which are considered to best describe the real-life conditions regarding the boundary conditions used. The results show that even at maximum designed height, the deposit is stable in the most realistic worst-case hypothesis 3, with a Factor of Safety of 1.177.